Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926) died of leukaemia, in the sanatorium Valmont sur Territet in Switzerland.
He had asked his doctor not to be informed of the diagnosis.
This last poem (untitled) was written an estimated ten days before his death.

Come, you, the last one that I will acknowledge,
ungodly pain within the weave of flesh:
just as I burned in spirit, see, I'm burning
in you; the wood has striven long against
assenting to the flame that you are flaring,
now, though, I nourish you and burn in you.
My earthly mildness changes in your raging
to rage of hell that's not from here.
All pure, all without plan from future free
I climbed onto the jumbled pyre of suffering,
so sure I'd not for anything to come yet
trade in this heart wherein the store kept mute.
Is it still I, unrecognisably
on fire there? I draw no memories in.
O life, life is: to be outside.
And I in flames here. No one knowing me.

___________________________________________________Therefore know that you must become one with the bow, and with the arrow, and with the target —
to say nothing of the horse.

♪... for a while ♪♪... for a little while... ♪
(Just a filthy beggar blessing / What happens to the heart)